After telling Americans that inflation has been transitory for some time, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday recognized that it's a permanent problem and should be dealt with "expeditiously."

The word "expeditiously” is a recent addition to the Fed's vocabulary, which means a couple of things.

One of them is that the Fed will quickly raise short-term interest rates, beginning with the 50-basis-point move announced today, possibly to be followed by a few more 50-basis-point hikes during upcoming meetings, which will bring the federal funds rate to 2% in the next 10 weeks. There was no explicit statement of what happens beyond that, other than the usual statement about economic conditions and geopolitical events.

"It was widely expected that the 50-basis-point hike was coming," Kevin Fagan, Moody's Analytics' head of CRE economic analysis, told International Business Times. "[Fed] Chairman [Jerome]Powell's been vocal about the Fed needing to 'expeditiously' return to neutral to combat inflation. This, in part, drove the 10-year Treasury yield up recently, hitting 3% yesterday for the first time in four years. Although GDP declined in the first quarter, the labor market's still extremely competitive. We think continued wage pressures will keep the Fed on this course through at least June before they might pause to assess the ramifications and reevaluate."

The other meaning of the word "expeditiously" is that the Fed will begin reducing its holdings of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities, a policy intended to raise long-term interest rates like Treasury bond yields and mortgage rates.

Moody's Analytics Senior Director of CMBS Research Darrell Wheeler told IBT that, "The most obvious potential impact could come from the potential for higher rates to push up cap rates, This is possible, but most CMBS was financing with leverage near 60% LTV, and exactly how rates could push up property yields is uncertain."

But aren't Fed hikes too little too late to bring inflation down from 8.5% to 2% without risking a recession?

Wall Street doesn't seem to think so.

Quite the opposite.

It believes that the Fed will engineer a "soft landing," staging a huge relief rally today after the issuing of the FOMC statement.

It remains to be seen whether the rally holds in the next few days and the Wall Street sentiment spreads to Main Street and Americans struggling to pay their food, energy and rent bills.